Does Chess Make you Smarter?

Talk about disappearing up your own egg!!!

I would like to add to this point. I believe in our every day it could be helpful to apply the theories behind chess. For example, we think of all of our plausible move when playing chess. Why not life?

Because - Steinitz, Morphy, Alekhin, Tal, Fischer - were a bunch of bitter foes; among other things, and they lived happily ever after.

There is a Wikipedia entry on "Chess as mental training." 

Even if the game does not make your smarter, perhaps it helps keep you from getting dumber?  One report on The Nun Study of Aging and Alzheimer's Disease noted that the "retired" nuns who worked as teachers tended to live longer and were less likely to develop Alzheimer's than the ones who worked in the kitchen.  The apparent difference in the two was that the teachers received more mental stimulation from their work. 

Contract Bridge is better.

Personally I doubt it makes the players "smarter". That said, you have define what you mean by smarter. I think it's likely that it helps kids develop thought processes when they're learn to play chess (or any other complex board game) at an early age. At some point it has to stop being beneficial. I've never heard of iq scores and chess rankings correcting or one of them causing another.

I am also very confident that some people who obsess over chess and spend many hours on it are likely to believe and promote the claims that chess makes people smarter, or more intelligent in tasks outside of chess. They want others to play chess, and they want to justify their own hobby with reasons other than simple enjoyment.

People who are the "smartest" have to be active readers and know multiple languages. I think the amount of general and specific knowledge can make people smarter simply because they are aware of more causes and more effects, independent and dependent variables of the world and know facts which can connect these causes and effects.

Reason I believe this is because reading and speech are connected since there both manifestations of any given language. Language is something that is connected to communication with other human beings, social skills, coordinated activity. So language and speech have to have evolved because they're advantageous to individual and group survival when hunting, building, teaching others. So, the brain has to be structurally predetermined for language and processing of different and diverse information and then communicating it. So reading and languages should be better promoters of intelligence. Chess is abstract and has no evolutionary connection so it's effect on general intelligence has to be less than that of reading and interactive learning.

Oh, about chicken and the egg discussion. Egg has to have come first for reasons others have explained.

The real big question is why something material at all (including universe) exists as opposed to not existing. Why there is something instead of nothing.
I cannot give a 100% answer, but what's clear is that something could not have come absolutely from nothing, then the primary cause of the universe must exist outside of this universe. It, thus being, has to be absolutely independent by any laws of physics, matter, quantum phenomena of this universe and yet be able to cause this universe's existence and affect it.

I believe you have to be at a certain aptitude level to learn Chess. It doesn't make you smarter than you already are. 

It helps to keep your brain working though........ the old saying.......if you don't use it, you lose it!  

I agree 100% There are more smart people who become dumbr, than dumb who become smart. Playing chess and other mental skill games prevent declination of the brain

Blldg1983 wrote

There is a Wikipedia entry on "Chess as mental training." 

Even if the game does not make your smarter, perhaps it helps keep you from getting dumber?  One report on The Nun Study of Aging and Alzheimer's Disease noted that the "retired" nuns who worked as teachers tended to live longer and were less likely to develop Alzheimer's than the ones who worked in the kitchen.  The apparent difference in the two was that the teachers received more mental stimulation from their work. 

Well chess takes you into a completely different world that non chess players dont experience. It makes you smarter in a different way and helps you take difficult choices

 

thats quite an interesting question that appears everywhere. i think chess is just a harmless way to waste your time )) other than that i dont see anything from the game ofchess that can be used in life.

The brain is like a muscle,or muscles. If you exercise it ,it will become stronger! The brain will make more connections in that particular part and when you stop exercising, it will lose or cause  a redundency of connections.So whatever part or parts of the brain that playing chess strengthens, will strengthen abilities that that particular part of the brain is used for.

IQ was developed by a guy called Stern, He developed it to determin the morbidity in children, Their mental age. 

Like kaynight said, click on the forum button and judge for yourself.

Does going to school make you smarter or does it allow you to maximize your potential?

Generally, and especially in the past several years, theorists have thought of "intelligence" as two separate components - one's natural problem solving skills (instinct, focus, concentration, application, reasoning) and acquired knowledge such as one gets from school.

Does a Theoretical physicist have a higher IQ compared to someone who knows or cares nothing about dark matter, dark energy and how they relate to the expansion rate of the universe?

Is a GM smarter because he has mastered chess but doesn't know the difference between a black hole and a binary star?

"Smart" and "IQ" are different. We each have biological limitations, both mentally and physically. Learning and playing chess helps you think in dimensions, as does learning and understanding geometry.

I believe that any type of structured learning is helpful in your desicion making proccesses.

There is that potential in chess, I believe.

I'd say the main variable that determines whether or not such potential is expressed irl is one's predisposition/personality. Choice factors in.

The younger one is, the stronger the potential.

Not sure from your post, do you play chess or just meet players?

Longchess helps, and bullet dont help. Playing longchess is training hard deep calculation. You push the brain, maybe over the limit where it hurts. You are developing deeper calculation power.

I get the impression that chess is certainly useful for to ward off mental degeneration  as we age - along with other mental past times.

Chess certainly has quite a few eccentrics. As I get older I much prefer these type of people, who are often are experts on other interesting stuff, than the average Joe and Joanne who bring nothing to the table of interest.

Many chess players on first impression are introvert and not visually "impressive". Beyond this I've found fellow chess players to be amongst the most interesting people out there and often with great senses of humour.